Culture compromises you. It can happen in ways that are blatant, such as being born in America without the safety of white skin or male genitals. Or it can happen in ways that are more subtle, such as being born in America WITH that safety. You are attached to your culture by an umbilical cord of your ancestors’ making that cannot be easily snipped. And even if you do manage to sever yourself from your culture, it will always leave a scar. To understand the total scope of how compromised you are by your culture is difficult to determine. The facets of it, may they be gender, sexuality, race, class, or spirituality, are all intertwined. They work together to influence how you construe reality and the people you choose to share it with. Healing is paramount. You don’t have a choice about it, just like how you don’t have a choice about how you are compromised. It must be done, and it will be painful. This may be the most ironic fact of life: in order to heal, we must suffer. My writing reflects this. It follows compromised characters who are trying their best in situations that bring their shadows to the surface. Some of them are frightened and fall victim to themselves, while others are brave enough to accept that they have work to do. I feel responsible to these characters in that they must be authentic. To accomplish this, I predominantly focus on their essential desires, and how they’re willing to get what they want. It is in the “how” that the way in which their culture compromises them especially comes to light. I don’t write to deliver masturbatory messages and themes to the public about “life” and how to do it. I write because I have to. Why? I’ll never know. My best guess is because I’m emotionally compromised by my family’s culture, so writing developed as a way for me to heal. And healing never ends, so I will never stop writing. I am very grateful to say that I have received a great deal of praise and support for what I have written thus far. "A Birthday in Stalingrad" was set to be produced at Centenary College of Louisiana (where I recently graduated in 2021), but the pandemic stalled that production. With the collaboration of many wonderful young artists, I was able to have a realized production of a different play, "6 Feet Apart". I am now taking steps side-by-side with other artists towards a production of a new play, "Making Plans", that will be in June of 2022. Ultimately what I have discovered is that my writing is my mirror, and I have the insatiable need to place that mirror on the stage for others to look into with me. I hope they see something they need to.